Page:Para leer a Carlos Castaneda.djvu/130

 The Toltecs are always in a "florid war", everything is a life or death battle, the most insignificant they do has a powerful reason as part of a strategy. And always have a powerful and wise counselor who will never lie. Death is who whispers to their ear that everything is ephemeral and do not have time.

"—We are beings on our way to death —said—. We are not immortal, but we behave as if we were. This is the flaw that knock us down as individuals and will knock us down as species someday...

»Professor Lorca is wise when he speaks —don Juan continued—, because he has the ability to use words correctly. But he is not prepared to take himself seriously as a man who is going to die. As he is immortal, he could not do so. It does not make any difference that scientists build complex machines. Machines cannot in any way help anyone face the inevitable appointment: the infinite appointment..." C.C.

GRATEFULLY

This story basis are that warriors-travelers of the infinite, leave no outstanding accounts in the affections world. Suggests that he should settle outstanding accounts he had with two women he loved which he ended badly and never saw again. He said he had to make a symbolic payment to appease infinity.

Don Juan tells Castaneda that warriors-travelers were pragmatic and were not involved in sentimentalism networks, nostalgia or melancholy. The warriors were only trained for florid battles and these are endless battles. The warrior-traveler which is about to plunge into infinity, pauses a moment to have a gesture with those people who favored him.

"—Defeat your self-pity right now —ordered me—. Defeat the idea that you are hurt, and what do you have left as irreducible residue?

What I had left as irreducible residue was the feeling that I had given my utmost gift to both. Not with the intention to renew anything, or harm anyone, including myself, but in the true spirit of the warrior traveler whose only virtue, don Juan told me, is keeping alive the memory of what has affected him; whose only one way to thank and say goodbye was through this magic act:  keeping in his silence all he loved..." C.C. 

BEYOND THE SYNTAX — THE USHER In this story, Castaneda describes a very important event of his childhood at the home of his grandfather, who taught him to play billiards despite his young age. This led him to be mixed with a mobster who invited him to play at night with high stakes in his favor. At the climax of the story, the mobster asks him to lose the decisive game, because he will bet his entire fortune against him and threatens him if he will not do so. The grandfather takes Castaneda to another town and he does not have to make the decision.

However, Don Juan gives him a very detailed description of what recapitulation means from the energy point of view. Tells him that Toltecs discovered that the universe is an immeasurable energy field composed of luminous filaments.

They saw that these energy fields were made of luminous fibers currents, conformed of constant streams, perennial in the universe and one of these, related to recapitulation was called "the dark